If you don’t know, Mafia is a game where one or two people are selected to be mafia members while everyone else is a townsperson.  In the version we play at Blake and Stephanie Konny’s, you walk around a darkened house and shake hands with people.  If a person pumps your hand, they are the mafia and you have just been killed.  After a body is found, everybody reconvenes to try to figure out who the killer(s) is/are.  It’s ridiculously fun, unless you’re killed or voted out early.  That’s how we spent our night.

This was just the second night Amanda and I had played, but we both ended up being the mafia, oddly enough, out of ten people.  Amanda did all the killing except for in one round.  I was terrible at defending myself, so with the only person I killed, I was caught.  Amanda ended up winning the round.  She was a serial killer.

The second game came down to a decision by me as to which of the other two remaining people was a mafia member.  I chose wrong, so I blew it for the townspeople and the mafia won again.  In fact, they won all but the final round, which I was involved in.

I was up at 5:45 this morning.  I made a banana peanut butter milkshake then waited for Barry and Hannah to pick me up to go surf at Topsail.  I didn’t really catch much of anything, but Barry and Hannah had a lot of fun.  The waves were pretty big and some guys caught some really nice ones.  Barry’s friend Chip was there, too.

At one point there was a big wave that was about to crash right in front of me as I was trying to paddle back out, so I figured I’d just turn around and try to ride its whitewater.  Chip was in the same situation I was in and that wave ended up spinning us both around in somersaults, and that was while I was just trying to hold onto the board and ride it in.  As soon as I came up from that another wave was on its way.  I thought, okay, I’ll ride this one in then.  Same, thing; I felt like a shirt in a washing machine.  Chip was able to catch that one though, and we spent a few minutes chatting before Barry and Hannah came ashore.

Afterwards we ate breakfast at a place just over the bridge.  I forget the name, but it was a restaurant and a marina.  While looking over the menu I told Hannah I was probably going to get the French toast, but I also wanted a side of eggs and bacon.  She said my eyes lit up when the waitress told us the breakfast special.  Yeah, you guessed it: French toast with a side of eggs and bacon or sausage.  Barry and Hannah got it too, and that was some pretty good French toast.  Barry treated.

Amanda had sent me a text message while we were in the water that she and Milly were going to Beulaville to have breakfast at her grandparents’ house.  Karen, who stayed the night, was still planning on eating there like she does most Saturday mornings, and since Amanda didn’t have anything going on she figured she’d go too.  I talked to her when I got home, and after breakfast she was going to head over to Richlands to see her dad for a bit.  I got a nice nap out of the deal.

I got up when the girls got home and shortly after that started watching Alabama take on Duke at Wallace Wade.  Alabama, in case it’s not so in the future, is an absolute powerhouse in football.  Duke used to be, but has not been in a while.  Alabama scored 28 points.  In the first quarter.  The final score was 62-13 or some such.  It was nice of Bama to not push it.  On a positive note, Duke scored the first touchdown against the Crimson Tide this season.

Amanda was incredibly not into watching the game, so I relented during the first half and agreed to go to The Fuzzy Peach.  We ate outside and Milly, of course, enjoyed it.

Milly was a bit fussier than usual today.  Amanda said she ate a lot of stuff for breakfast, but not much at lunch, plus she didn’t get to nap.  We found out later in the day that she’ll eat spaghetti now.  She used to not like it.

Michael and Jenn came over to watched house.  Yes, they were ostensibly watching Milly, but Amanda and I had put her in bed just before they got there.  We then went over to the Konnys’ to play Mafia.

Blake and Stephanie will be moving soon, which is a shame because their house is perfectly suited for Mafia.  I tried thinking of other people I knew whose houses would be good for it, and the only people I could think of were Amanda’s parents, and I doubt anyone would want to drive an hour to the backwoods of Onslow County to play.

Oh, I thought I was running a camera tomorrow for church, but I’m not.  Paschal had misread my email to him, where I said I could do it but would like not to since I did it the previous week if that could be worked out.  He just thought I was asking off for the week and had found somebody else, but since he hadn’t read the part about how I could still do it, he didn’t let me know he had filled my spot.

That’s nice, because it means I’ll get to sleep in at least a little later than I expected on a weekend where I was staying up late every night.

Zach Dotsey